


you are like sand

by apollothyme



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Beach Sex, Crack Relationships, FIFA World Cup 2014, M/M, Unsafe Sex, sort of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Football is the beat of his heart and the ache in his legs.</p><p>Running at the break of dawn gives off a similar feeling, but it’s different. Football reduces the world into a perfect white sphere. Running reduces the world to the burn in his lungs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are like sand

Every day, before the break of dawn, he wakes up to the sound of his alarm clock shrilling in his ears. Afterwards, everything happens systematically.

He turns off his alarm clock, sits up with his eyes still closed and pads quietly to the bathroom to relieve himself. He gets dressed with his eyes still half-closed, a simple white shirt and swimming shorts. He slips his phone into his right pocket and puts on a pair of well-worn running shoes without untying the existing knot.

He walks to the door and almost forgets to pick up his hotel card key before he takes two steps back, glares at the plastic rectangle like it's the one at fault there and not him, and puts it in his pocket. Back home he has a keypad on his door, no keys required. He runs a hand through his hair as he walks down the long hallway with its sickly yellow walls and plush grey carpet, wonders if hotels everywhere have some kind of contract that forces them to make their hallways look as bland as possible.

Mats doesn’t expect to find anyone else up, so he’s a little surprised when he runs into Mario in the hotel’s reception.

He isn’t sure what to do. Mario’s in a corner sitting by himself and staring at nothing. His cell phone is in his hand and he’s wearing Bayern Munich sweat pants and their national team’s sweatshirt. Mats could— _should—_ go up to him and ask if everything is alright, but like everyone else at Dortmund, he’s still a little bitter that Mario left them. It’s stupid, he knows, and he has to admit that he’s not sure he wouldn’t leave as well if Bayern came calling, but nevertheless the grudge remains. 

In the end, helping a teammate, even if he’s not the same kind of teammate he used to, and satisfying his curiosity win the debate.

“You alright?”

Mario jumps in his seat and stares at Mats like he’s surprised to discover he’s not the only person currently living on earth. Mats stares back with half-lidded, tired eyes.

“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep,” Mario says, after his surprise evaporates and he returns to his previous apathetic state.

This is the point where Mats should nod and leave, but Mario is a terrible liar, has always been, and Mats likes to think of himself as an alright human being, so he presses on. “Are you sure nothing is going on?”

“Yes, I mean, no,” Mario clutches his phone tighter, “I mean— I don’t know?” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mats hopes Mario will say no. He wants to help his friend, but talking about feelings isn’t exactly his strong suit, and he’s already at a loss with the lost look Mario is giving him.

“No, it’s fine, really. You go on your crazy run and enjoy himself. It’s not even six a.m. yet, though. Are you starting early while we’re in Brazil?”

Mats nods and then, finally, he gets it. He, Mario and Marco—and Kloppo, sometimes, because Kloppo is a coach for the history books—used to go running together, early in the morning, while the world was still covered in mist, but then Mario left. They didn’t go for any runs together after that. 

“I was waking up later back then so you guys could keep up,” Mats jokes, before he adds, more quietly, “You should call him. It’s almost eleven there, so he’s probably awake already,” he doesn’t specify who he’s talking about. He sincerely doubts Mario has any plans to call Kloppo anytime soon, probably thinks Kloppo holds the transfer against him. Which is dumb, Mats thinks, but doesn’t say. Kloppo holds a grudge against Bayern, not Mario.

“I don’t know,” Mario says. Mats stares at him for a couple of seconds before he shrugs. He’s done what he could.

He takes the path the hotel manager recommended to the beach, the one that’s hidden in the trees from the outside world. For a second, the feeling of disconnection is so overwhelming Mats has to stop and just breathe it all in.

It’s nice to be away from everything. It grounds him in, sets his feet more firmly on the ground.  It’s why he likes these runs that nobody else seems to comprehend, much less enjoy. Mats is not good enough with words to be able to describe the sensation of running with the knowledge that you’re the only one awake. He can't explain why the rush of breaking into a sprint in the middle of nowhere is so exhilarating and why pushing cold air into his warm chest is so satisfying.

He’s tried to compare it to football a couple of times, but that doesn’t work either. Football is a mix of chaos and precision. Football is knowing your teammates inside out; being able to predict where the ball will go and rush somewhere else when your prediction is wrong. Football is the beat of his heart and the ache in his legs.

Running at the break of dawn gives him feeling that is similar, not identical. Football reduces the world into a perfect white sphere. Running reduces the world to the burn in his lungs.

His energy starts to pick up as his rhythm does. He always starts out slow, gives his body time to adjust and his muscles to warm up. On days he has practice with the team, like this one, his run substitutes the one he’ll have to do later with everyone else, and he’s under strict orders not to push himself too hard.

Mats looks at the unending expansion of beach in front of him, deserted save for another runner so far up ahead he’s just a spot in the distance. He stares at the white sand, always beautiful in its fragmented state, and the crystal blue waves, and thinks, _to hell with it,_ before he breaks into a sprint.

He loves this part, loves to feel the wind blow against his heated skin and the pressure of the ground against his feet. Running on sand is new, but he enjoys it just as much as he’d enjoy running on solid pavement. After a couple of minutes, when he’s slowed down a bit, he decides to take off his sneakers and run barefoot near the water. 

He’s about to jog past the other runner, who’s running at a light pace, almost so slow he's walking, when he notices who it is.

Mats stumbles, has to focus on putting a feet after the other to stop himself from falling. He feels like he’s underwater, a hundred meters under and struggling to move as he looks at the world above him.

He stares. He tries not to, but he can’t help it. He forgets all about his plans of overtaking the guy and instead stares at the back of his head— _his_ head, Messi’s head, _Lionel Messi’s head._ He knew the hotel the Argentinians were staying in was close to theirs, but he hadn’t thought that meant the two teams would be running into each other, much less that he’d be running into Lionel Freaking Messi on a deserted beach a little after six in the morning.

Is Mats—is he supposed to say something? That’d be the polite thing to do, right? He doesn’t know any Spanish, but he could say ‘hello’ or something else ridiculous and entirely nonsensical like that. 

His choice is taken away from him when Messi turns his head, sees him out the corner of his eye and turns around to look ahead again.

Okay, then, no hellos. Messi probably doesn’t even know who Mats is. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who researches all his opponents, although Mats can’t help feeling a little bitter about that. He knows who Lionel Messi is: best in the world, star player, the image of modesty and all that, but still. Dortmund isn’t beneath Barcelona or any other club.

Mats is about to overtake him when Messi starts running faster, so that they’re running side by side. Mats looks at him, but Messi is staring straight ahead. Mats runs faster, but Messi just speeds up as well. This goes on for a couple of minutes until Mats finally decides to break into a second sprint.

He’s not surprised when Messi follows him not a second later. 

The whole thing is so ridiculous that Mats doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to tell his teammates about it afterwards, but he enjoys himself nonetheless. Messi seems to enjoy running as much as him and he’s quiet, able to keep up easily. It feels good to have someone by his side that doesn’t complain every five minutes that his legs are going to fall off.

They run until the burn becomes too overbearing, their shoulders are scalding under the rising sun, and their lungs can’t pull in the air fast enough. Mats is the first to stop. He takes off his shirt, puts his card key inside his shoes and then throws them on the sand.

He’s not sure what compels him to say the next words; why he chooses plural instead of singular; why he assumes, without any real reason to, that Messi will agree to his request. He just knows he will, the same way he knows how to breathe, the same way he knows everything falls into place with time. 

“Let’s go for a swim,” he says.

He doesn’t wait for Messi to reply before he enters the water. He takes four long steps and then dives inside. The temperature shock sends shivers all over his body, but he revels in the sensation, does a few strokes underwater before he reemerges and sees Messi floating in the water a couple of meters away from him.

They do that for a while; Mats swims underwater for as long as his lungs allow him and only comes up for short gulps of air, while Messi just floats with his hands behind his head. They don’t talk, but they don’t avoid each other either.

Mats has no idea what to make of it.

After their swim, they run back to their respective hotels with their shoes and shirts in their hands. Before he cuts to the side to leave for his hotel, Messi extends his right hand and says, “Leo.”

Mats doesn’t snort and says ‘I know that’, but it’s a near thing. He shakes Messi’s hand. It’s too weird to think of Messi as just Leo, as if they’re already friends.

“Mats.”

Messi smiles. Mats has a feeling he already knew his name as well. Messi goes back to his hotel. Mats keeps running.

By the time Mats gets back to his hotel room there is a blistering sunburn on his back. Half the staff team gives him a shifty, judgemental look, as if they think he got the sunburn on purpose to hinder the team, and the other half give him creams and sprays to deal with it. Mats thanks them, apologizes and promises it won’t happen again.

He doesn’t tell anyone about meeting Messi. He’s not sure yet what that was all about and, in any case, some things are better if kept to himself.

The next morning he puts on sunscreen before he leaves and decides to take a water bottle with him. Just as he’s about to leave, he turns back and grabs another water bottle from the mini-bar. He doesn’t run into Mario in the hotel’s reception. He wonders if it means Mario took his advice.

He finds Messi sitting near the sea. He's leaning on his elbows and he has his legs stretched so that the waves lap against at his feet every time they surge forward. His eyes are closed, his head thrown back. He's like a cat on a windowsill, absorbing the atmosphere around him.

“Hey,” Mats says as he gets closer. There’s nobody else at the beach again. The first orange rays of sunlight are beginning to peek through in the horizon.

Messi smiles at him and gets up. Mats hands him one of the water bottles, which Messi stares at for a couple of seconds before he smiles again, this time with his teeth showing and the corners of his mouth tugging wide, and takes it. He doesn’t say anything. Mats discovers that he’s not as annoyed by this as he would normally be.

Their run goes like the one the day before. They sprint, slow down, sprint again and go for a swim. Messi floats with his arms behind his head, Mats swims with his feet together underwater and pretends he’s a mermaid, something he's done since he was a child. They run back to their respective hotels. Mats says goodbye. Messi turns around and waves.

They meet again the next morning and the one after that. Mats doesn’t think about their game against Portugal a week from then, doesn’t think about practice, doesn’t think about anything but the feeling of sand against his feet, harsh and cold, and yet still soft and comfortable. He enjoys every lungful of fresh air he takes, wonders if he can take this small piece of paradise home with him when he leaves. Germany is his country, always, but Brazil is something else.

He wants to ask Messi if he feels the same, if he’s happy to be in Brazil or if he wishes they were in Argentina, if the rivalry between the two countries is as big as they say. He wants to ask what’s it like to be so close to your home country and yet so far away, wants to know if Argentina is still home to him.

He doesn’t know why he’s so curious when he never is with anyone else. Mats is usually the first to say ‘if it’s none of my business, then it’s none of my business’, but now he wants to know. He thinks it’s because it’s different, with Messi. He’s a stranger, and yet he smiles when he sees Mats and keeps up with whatever crazy rhythm Mats wants to run in and this works. Their crazy runs before six a.m— they work.

They’ve never worked with anyone else before.

The fifth day of their morning runs, Mats forgets his swimming shorts.

He’s always half-asleep while he gets dressed, which leads him to sometimes pick a red sock and a green one, put on his shirt backwards or, in this case, put on a pair of denim shorts. By the time he notices his mistake he’s already standing near the water. One of his feet touches the inside of Messi’s arm. Messi smiles at him without opening his eyes.

Their arms brush while they run, from their shoulders to their hands. Not always, just every so often, Mats will feel Messi’s skin graze his. He’s always hot, as if his blood is boiling in his arteries. It makes Mats stand a little on edge every time it happens, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it. If anything, he stands closer, even though normally he dislikes people touching his arms.

They run like they did the past few day. Sprint, slow down, sprint again, only this time when they stop for a swim, Mats says, “Go ahead. I forgot my swimming shorts today.”

Messi stops and stares at him for a couple of seconds before he eyes him up and down. Mats wonders how good Messi’s English is, if he has to bust out the five Spanish words he knows to embarrass himself as he tries to explain why he can’t go swimming. After a couple of seconds, Messi finally shrugs and turns around.

Mats is disappointed at the lack of reaction. He doesn’t know why he expected an answer, when the most he’s ever gotten out of Messi is a single word. He guesses he simply expected something, anything. 

He’s about to sit down on the sand and wait while Messi does his float in the water thing when he sees Messi drop his swim shorts and step out of them without so much as a moment of hesitation. He turns his head around and smirks at Mats. Just that. Just a smirk. 

The water is lukewarm when Mats steps foot in it. Normally it’s cold, always a temperature shock that has his mind fighting his body as Mats commands it to stay down, close to the melting sand, and his body instinctively tries to swim upwards. It’s warm today. Comfortable. Mats only takes his shorts off when the water is already up to his waist, ruining the point of even taking them off, but still a necessity because Messi has taken off his and he’s not floating. He’s standing, with his back to Mats, the water a little above his waistline and his hands out of reach underneath the water.

Mats throws his shorts onto the sandbank. He swims.

He reaches for Messi with his right hand at the same time as Messi turns around. They meet in the middle as a wave cuts past them, soft, unnoticed. 

Mats isn’t surprised to discover Messi’s mouth is just as hot as the rest of him. He’s not surprised about a lot of things, even though distantly, he’s aware that he should be. He’s aware that he’s only ever been with a man once in his life, in a dark club with lights too bright and neon face paint covering his features, and that it didn’t mean anything then, but he can’t say the same for now. He’s aware that they’re in a public beach, where anyone could show up, and that the trees and the light of dawn offer a small measure of privacy. He’s aware that Messi’s hands are smaller than his as they trace lazy circles across Mats’ back before they move down, down, down.

He’s aware that he has closed his eyes and is framing Messi’s jaw with his hands to keep him in place. He’s aware of the height difference and how he’ll have a crick in his back afterwards from bending down to kiss Messi. He’s aware of how one of Messi’s legs is between his, and how when Messi pulls him down into the water, he goes with no resistance.

Even underwater, Messi’s hand is still a mark of heat on his body, but Mats doesn’t complain, far from it. 

He comes with his head on Messi’s shoulder and Messi’s heavy breathing in his ear. Messi comes a couple of seconds and strokes afterwards.

Messi is the first to throw himself on the dry sand, with Mats following him a moment later. They lie side by side, naked, with their chests heaving and their skin drying too quickly from the first rays of scorching sunlight. Mats breathes in the sea, the salt and the sun. He thinks this moment, right now, should be awkward, after what they’ve just done. It’s not.

Putting on his wet shorts so they can run back is more of a bother, however, as they cling to his body like mollusks and the harsh fabric grinds on his skin and chaffs between his thighs. He finds that he doesn’t mind half as much as he should.

This feeling of peace lasts well up until he’s said goodbye to Messi—with a hug this time—showered, eaten breakfast with his teammates and had morning practice. It’s only when he’s about to go to bed that the reality of what happened that morning fully hits him and then he just stops. A blob of toothpaste falls from the toothbrush now stuck in the air. He watches it fall and doesn’t move an inch. He exhales, inhales, exhales again.

He paces around his bedroom until his feet have carpet burns and he’s not a centimeter closer to digesting the fact that he had sex with Lionel Messi on a deserted beach earlier that day. Who even does that?

Him, apparently.

The thought isn’t very reassuring.

He takes his phone out of his pocket as the wall of silence he’d been building begins to crumble. He calls the only person he can think of calling who will help him sort out his mind, or at least won’t judge him too harshly about it.

“Do you know how late it is over here?”

Mats pulls his phone away from his ear and looks at the clock. “About one in the morning?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“That’s not late.”

Even though he can’t see him, Mats can somehow still sense Marco rolling his eyes. “Alright, dickhead. What’s wrong?”

Mats huffs. “Why does something have to be wrong? Can’t a guy just call his best friend to ask him how he’s doing and tell him how things are going?”

Marco snorts and lets out a laugh that he has to choke back after a couple of seconds. “Mats, you know I love you, man, but you never pick up your phone, you don’t check your email, you don’t text and you certainly don’t call unless something’s wrong. Seriously, we’ve known each other for what, three years now? And all the texts I have from you are different variations of ‘where are you?’, ‘when are we going out?’ and ‘I’ll be there in a second’.”

“That’s not true!” he exclaims. He’s sure he’s texted Marco more than that. Granted, he’s not a fan of having long conversations through his phone and always chooses face-to-face contact when he can, but he’s not _that_ anti-social.

“Drunk texting doesn’t count.”

“Ah,” he says. Maybe Marco has a point.

“Anyway, you gonna tell me what’s wrong or do I have to send in someone to do it for you?”

“Would that someone be Mario?”

“Possibly, I don’t know. Will you stop trying to change the subject?” Marco complains. Mats decides he’ll bring it up again later.

“I might have done something…” various words weight on his tongue; stupid, dangerous, idiotic, “reckless.”

“Drugs?” Marco asks without hesitation. Mats tries not to take it personally that that’s the first thing he goes for. Football is a stressful business.

“No.”

“Sex?” He sounds like he’s ticking things off a mental checklist.

Mats waits a beat. “Yes.”

“With someone you’re afraid will spread shit to the press?”

At that, Mats can’t help laughing. “No, I don’t think this person would do that.”

The next question shocks Mats, who thought their question game would go on for longer. Although, if he thinks about it, it makes sense. Marco was there that night, the one at the club with the overwhelming lights and repetitive music, the one with Christoph. Some other guys from Dortmund were there, too, but they were all so drunk they wouldn’t have noticed if Mats had gone home with a grizzly bear. Marco was on some kind of pain meds that night, and had only drank alcohol-free beer.

“With a guy?”

“Yeah, he— I mean—” Mats bites down on his lip, “not with anyone from our team. With someone else. Also a player, but not one anyone from Germany.”

Mats can hear Marco sitting up in the background. “Do I know him? Have we played against him?” 

“You know about him?” he tries. He’s not sure what he’s saying, if he’s trying to avoid the truth or just circling around it like an idiot.

“Mats—”

“Messi. It was Lionel Messi. I had sex with Lionel Messi. On the beach. During sunrise,” Mats bursts out, the words quick and stunted.

The line goes silent. Mats deduces that Marco is either speechless or carefully trying to decide what to say. He counts the seconds as they pass while staring at his knees. His toes rubs against the mauve carpet on the floor. The silence perpetuates, until finally, Marco asks, “Messi?”

“Yeah.”

“On the beach? Like, with people there or...?”

“No, god. It was deserted. Sunrise and all. We’ve been going for runs together in the morning. He’s just— always there,” he says, willing it to make sense, willing Marco to get it the same way he does, because it’s so instinctual, so beyond words.

Messi is just there, in the mornings, always with a smile on his face and everything that happened between them felt so natural, even though they barely knew each other at all. Mats couldn’t put it in any other way, couldn’t say they had something special, or any of that crap. They’d clicked and that was that. 

“ _Messi?_ ” Marco asks again.

“Yes,” Mats groans.

Marco goes silent for another couple of seconds before he asks, sounding overly cheerful, “Well, do you regret it? Is this some big gay freakout kind of thing? I don’t mind giving you some advice on sex and all, but I feel like Google would better suit your interests.”

“No, no, it’s definitely not that,” he laughs and scrubs a hand over his face. “I just wanted to tell someone.”

“So, no regrets?”

Mats thinks back to that morning, and all the mornings before that ever since he arrived in Brazil. “No.”

“Well then, you’re good, I think. I don’t know, you’ve not really given me a lot information, and I’m still kind of in shock with the whole Messi thing, but you’re a reasonably mature adult—”

“Hey!”

“—and I trust you know what you’re doing. Don’t forget condoms, though. You never know where that dick might have been.”

Mats groans and flops on the bed. He’d forgotten his best friend was secretly a sassy, sixty-year-old women who gave sex advice on a weekly column in the local newspaper. “What about you? How are things with Mario?”

“We’re not doing this,” Marco tries to say. Mats ignores him completely.

“Have you two been talking? He doesn’t look very good, man,” Marco makes a noise on the other end of the line, so Mats takes it as his queue to keep going. “He’s fine with the team, but whenever I catch him on his own he just looks… lost.”

“He’s called a couple of times, but I never know what to say. You’re all there and I’m not, and he left and I didn’t. It’s ridiculous, it’s not like there’s anything going on between us, it’s not… it’s not like it matters,” Mats stays silent long enough for Marco to feel the need to continue talking, “I’m trying to forgive him, I really am, but even that I can’t do. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch.”

“At least you’re trying?” Mats says, but he doesn’t sound that confident or reassuring.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh. “Listen, I need to go to bed. I’ll talk to you later? And be careful. Seriously, Mats, don’t do anything too stupid.”

Mats nods, even though Marco can’t see him. He sleeps well that night, the same way he’s slept all the nights before. Messi is at the beach waiting for him the next morning with a smile on his face. Mats smiles back.

They start a new routine that morning. It begins as it always does. Messi is sitting by the water when Mats gets to the beach. They run together, side by side. Sprint, slow down, sprint again and go for a swim. Only now, Messi no longer floats with his arms behind his head and Mats doesn’t pretend to be a mermaid underwater. Instead, they meet in the water and make each other come like it’s normal, casual, just a thing they do.

Mats doesn’t question why he’s doing this with a guy, why Messi, why a beach where everyone could walk in on them. He’s not an exhibitionist, would much rather prefer a private hotel room any other time. With Messi, however, this seems to work. Mats doesn’t spend too long thinking about it. He’s always found it easier to roll with the circumstances. 

Afterwards they lie on the sand and let the sun dry them before they run back to their respective hotels. Mats says goodbye in English. Messi turns around and waves. They don’t speak to each other.

They can’t meet during days they have games, schedule too busy and tiring themselves out before a match not a good idea. Messi is the first to bring this up. His English is as bad as Mats thought it’d be, but he still makes the words work, wraps them around his heavy Spanish accent and drops them in the air like rocks, one by one, until they can be stringed together.

He says, “Tomorrow I have a game, and I can’t,” he waves at the beach. His tongue peaks out of his mouth as he thinks. He looks like he’s saying back lines he’s carefully rehearsed, “be here. To run.”

Mats nods. “I won’t be here either the day after either, because of my game.”

“Okay,” Messi says. It’s the most he’s said in the two weeks since they met. 

Things are a little different between them that morning. They’re slower, don’t sprint for as long or as quickly. Their run is sluggish and it eases down gradually but rapidly, until they’re not even pretending to jog. They walk. Mats wonders if neither of them is looking to tire themselves out before the first game of the World Cup, or if walking just feels better today. He’s not sure which it is for him.

They go deeper into the water, with Messi leading the way. Mats has to stand on his tiptoes to raise his head above the water, so he’s sure Messi has to be out of depth. He pulls Messi closer with a hand on his hip and another behind his shoulder blades, holds him close, drags him into a kiss underwater, smirks when Messi moans right into his mouth.  He likes this. He likes the little noises Messi makes, always held back, but still loud above the waves. He likes the way Messi’s skin flushes this bright pink color, and how he’s soft under Mats’ rough fingers, despite being composed of hard lines and muscles all over. He wonders about what Messi likes about him, if he’s just a quick fuck or something else. He doesn’t ask. They don’t have that kind of relationship.

They do this for the entirety of the World Cup. Meet every morning, except the days when either of them has a game, and take their time the day before.

Marco starts to regularly text him asking for details on the ‘LM-business’. Mats texts back asking about the ‘MG-business’. They don’t talk a lot about their love—sex? friends with benefits? friends without benefits?—lives after that. 

The days in Brazil run after each other, too fast, nights shifting into dawns, shifting into practice under the bruising heat, shifting into a stadium so crowded they can’t even hear themselves think. They leave the group stage without too many difficulties, fight hard against Algeria and think they’re in a dream against Brazil.

Time breezes by, flutters against their salt-marked skin and forces them to keep up with its hands.

Mats has never been one to wish for the universe to slow down, but he gets that desire now. Part of him wants the final match to come as quickly as possible so they can get it done with, but another part of him is sad to see the World Cup come and go, wishes he could trap this moment in his fingers and hold it for a little while longer.

On the day before the final between Argentina and Germany, Mats takes his time getting out of bed. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, thinks about cutting his beard, then decides against it. He’s not sure why he’s stalling when everything in him is telling him to stop being an idiot and get to the beach as fast as he can.

He stares at his hotel room. His bag is already mostly packed, ready to leave at any moment’s notice. He can hear Thomas’ snoring next door through the open window. He closes it and leaves, takes the stairs to avoid bumping into anyone, even though he rarely ever meets anyone on his way out.  The sand gets between his toes, its little cracked fragments reflecting the shy morning light. Mats stares at it as he walks, looks at the prints he leaves and admires the smooth, expanse of the beach, yet to be marked by a wilderness of tourists like himself.

Messi doesn’t look at him when Mats reaches him, but he does lift one of his arms, asking to be pulled up.

It’s only then, after doing this for weeks, after letting things unravel naturally and accepting everything for what it was without questioning, that Mats begins to regret the silence.

He begins to regret that he has no name to call whatever it is he and Messi have, even if he will never mention it to anyone besides Marco. He regrets that he has no idea what Messi’s been thinking, all this time, if any of this matters to him, if Mats really is just a fuck.  He regrets all the questions he didn’t ask and things he didn’t say. He wonders how he could ever be so comfortable with silence when right now, it feels like he has the world weighing on his tongue.

Despite all this, he still doesn’t say anything, because Messi doesn’t seem to know any English or German, and Mats certainly doesn’t know any Spanish. What could he even say? 'I really liked all those times we had sex on the beach even though we’re still near strangers’?

That morning they don’t sprint, barely runs either. Mats doesn’t want to rush this. He thinks Messi feels the same, from the way he’s so close. Their arms, from their shoulders to their wrists to the soft pads of their fingers, bump into one another so often it feels like they’re holding hands.

At about halfway through their ‘run’, Mats decides to stop pretending and entwines their fingers together. Messi doesn’t pull away.

They strip a meter away from the water, still close enough to touch each other. Their movements are quick, but not hurried. The sun is rising and it paints the world a lazy, glowing orange. Mats kisses Messi while they’re still at the edge of ocean. He takes one of Messi’s wrist, about to pull him into the water, when Messi presses a plastic bottle of lube onto his hand and flops down on the sand.

Mats follows him after his quiet shock dissipates. This is what they always do. Follow one another. Mats trusts Messi the same way he trusts the ground to hold him up and his heart to keep pumping blood through his arteries for years to come. Not blindly, but close enough.

Messi kisses him first, fists a hand through his hair and pulls, not gentle, not hesitating. The sand is going to get everywhere, Mats thinks. It’s going to carve itself into every nook and cranny of their bodies and grind against their skin. Messi looks like he couldn’t care less. Mats strokes the underside of his jaw and pushes Messi's head against the sand. He doesn’t care either.

He takes his time opening Messi, sucks him off while he does it because otherwise Messi will try to speed things up, and they’re not having rough sex on the beach the day before the most important match of their lives. 

Mats spends his time watching Messi, with his blown pupils and flushed cheeks. He runs a hand down Messi’s side, the other placed firmly on his chest, right above Messi’s heart. Messi looks gorgeous like this, sun tanned and spread across the sand. Mats wants to catalogue the way he looks, but that makes him think about this is the last time they’ll ever do this and then he stops, cuts himself off, pushes into Messi’s body and stops thinking. 

The only thing they say is each other’s names. Mats gasps it into Messi’s skin, burns it with his tongue, while Messi says it over and over again, repeats it like a mantra, the words often caught in a moan or a shout.

Afterwards, they go in the water. Messi floats with his hands behind his head. Mats swims underwater. Every so often he’ll swim under Messi and flick up with his feet. Messi tries to push him away without really trying.

And then they’re leaving, walking, side by side, and Mats still doesn’t know what to say. He thinks about it up until they reach Messi’s hotel, which is when he finally gives up and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Messi nods. “Good luck,” he says and he’s smiling, of course he is. Messi always seems to be smiling.

Mats is going to miss that.

“You too. And I just wanted to say that I really liked this,” he waves a hand in the air, pointing at the expanse of the beach, “the running and the... everything,” he finishes, suddenly shy.

“ _Te extrañaré_ ,” Messi says.

Mats has no clue what it means, so he says, “I hope we meet again sometime,” and then Messi nods again and leaves and that’s that.

Two days later, running on no sleep and with the first traces of a hangover prodding his head, Mats goes to the beach. He’s not surprised when he sees that it’s empty, but he is a little crestfallen and disappointed, even though he’s not sure why he hoped Messi would be there in the first place.

He knows it wasn’t just sex, but.

It wasn’t a lot more than that either.

He goes for a last swim in the ocean and then goes to his hotel room, where he takes a nice, long shower and washes away the sweat and the salt from his skin.  A couple of hours later, on a plane on its way to Berlin, he finds a few fragments of sand behind his ear when he scratches his hair.

Sand is just one of those things you can try to wash away, time and time again, and still, it lingers on.


End file.
